Brief Summary:
This article exposes Dan Nash’s involvement in the Neo-fascist group Patriot Front, and his past participation as a reenactor for the the 9th reenactment division, which seeks to portray the 9th waffen SS Panzer division in reenactments across the country. The information for this article came from the unprecedented leak of Patriot Front membership material posted by the independent news outlet Unicorn Riot in January 2022 as well as the Patriot Front photo gallery hosted by Rose City Antifa.
Patriot Front
As discussed in previous articles, Patriot Front is a Neo-fascist and white supremacist group that splintered off of the explicitly Neo Nazi organization Vanguard America after one of their members drove a car through a crowd of counterprotestors at the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Virginia. Vanguard America was initially founded in 2016 by former US marine and avowed white supremacist dillon Hopper, and the groups ideology revolved around opposition to multiculturalism and the idea that America should be an exclusively white European nation. To further advertise their Nazi sympathies, The group espoused the Nazi-era philosophy of “blood and soil” (initially called blut und boden in Nazi Germany) which is a reference to the notion that white European blood is inherently tied to American soil. Unsurprisingly, VA barred people of color from obtaining membership and cemented themselves as a fixture of the Alt right movement in the mid 2010’s after the election of Donald Trump. During its short existence Vanguard America also attempted to further solidify their ties to the Neo Nazi movement by joining the Nationalist Coalition, a conglomeration of Alt Right groups which included the National Socialist Movement, Ku Klux Klan, Traditionalist Workers Party, League Of The South, and Aryan Strikeforce.
Vanguard Americas fame within the alt right movement did not last long, however. After the 2017 Unite the Right rally Vanguard America imploded when Texas based teenager Thomas Rousseau took control of the groups chats and took the groups website offline. Several days later the groups website came back online with an entirely different look, and Rousseau announced the formation of Patriot front. In his message via the Southern Front discord server announcing the groups split, he made it abundantly clear that the split was aesthetic rather than ideological. Patriot Fronts rebranding was a conscious effort to distance the new group from the Vanguard America name and adopt a new strategy of encouraging recruitment through theatrical activism and appealing to the mainstream notion of “American Patriotism.”
The idea that Patriot Front still espouses the same ideology as it’s predecessor is also born out in Patriot Fronts stated goals. While Patriot Front uses more American nationalist/patriotic aesthetics to cloak its explicitly white supremacist agenda, they still have no qualms about calling themselves fascists or calling for the rebirth of America into an exclusively white fascist state. The groups online manifesto references the “great replacement theory” numerous times, claims that “democracy has failed in America” and excludes people of color from the definition of ‘American.’ Much like the former Vanguard America, Patriot Front also uses a fasces as its logo, which was originally used by the Italian fascist party in the 1930’s.
Since its split with Vanguard America, Patriot Front has been responsible for the distribution of more white supremacist propaganda than any other white supremacist group combined, the goal of which is to both intimidate minority communities and recruit young racist middle class white men who sympathize with the groups message. After the 2020 unrest over racial injustice the groups tactics escalated into overt acts of vandalism and violence. Patriot Front has been behind the defacement of several murals dedicated to social justice causes, and in several cases members of the group assaulted bystanders during their short lived flash marches that typically take place in large liberal cities. Their most infamous stint with law enforcement came in 2022 when 31 of the groups members including Rousseau were arrested after attempting to start a riot at a pride parade in Couer D’Alene, Idaho. Police found that the group of assorted fascists had a written plan to confront pride attendees, which included the use of a shield wall and smoke bombs. While many of the groups members that were arrested that day were found guilty on conspiracy to riot charges, the charges against Rousseau were dropped due to a lack of evidence.
Dan Nash AKA Adam PA
We were able to confirm Nash’s identity through pictures of him participating in a group drill session before Patriot Fronts December 2021 flash march in Washington DC, which closely matched his pictures as a Nazi reenactor(more on that later) and several pictures of him working at Stoney Run winery near Allenstown, Pennsylvania . Due to his participation as a medic and the fact that Patriot Front carefully tracks its members roles during flash marches we found that Adam PA was the only Pennsylvania based medic.
From his brief stint in the leaked chat logs it is obvious Nash was an extremely active member of the group, having posted copious amounts of Patriot front propaganda in the groups activism channel, which likely included flying runs in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey
Nash’s role as a reenactor and the problem with the ninth reenactment society
Upon discovering Nash’s identity as Adam PA we also stumbled onto one of his favorite past times. It appears that Nash has participated in the historical reenactment scene cosplaying as you guessed it, a Nazi.
Nash has participated in numerous events put on by the 9th reenactment society, which portrays the 9th SS Panzer division ‘Hohenstaufen’ during reenactment events. Before we go on about Nash’s involvement in the reenactment group we find that it is important to mention why groups like the ninth reenactment society are problematic and may have even played a role in radicalizing Nash. We would note that the historical reenactment scene has long been a vector for far right ideology and promoting the myth of “ the lost cause”. Both the Sons of Confederate veterans and the League of the South have hosted civil war era reenactments or used them as recruitment tools. There have also been some reenactors that have been exposed as white supremacists who have cosplayed as confederate soldiers. The longstanding trend of white supremacist entryism into the reenactment scene stems from multiple factors, including the history of reenactments in the United States. Like many monuments that commemorate the confederacy in the south, historical reenactments which started with portrayals of the confederacy during the civil war became popular during the civil rights era, and since then have portrayed many of the same narratives that were used to oppose integration and civil rights, including the notion that the civil war was fought over “states rights” and that southern culture is dying and needs to be preserved through restoring a glorified and whitewashed memory of the confederacy.
It is also extremely problematic that many reenactment groups in the United States describe themselves as “non-political” while portraying explicitly political factions. Using the term “non-political” to describe their reenactments allows whitewashed/glorified portrayals of history to go unchallenged, thus setting the stage for a complete rewriting or omission of history.
The ninth reenactment society fits this description to a tee, as they claim to be “a group of non-political enthusiasts of history.” They also claim that they are not Neo-Nazis and do not subscribe to the ideologies of any extremist groups. This is particularly ironic given that they are cosplaying as one of histories most infamous extremist groups/political parties. Their website also claims “WE, ALONG WITH OUR PARTNER GROUPS, HAVE HELPED TO KEEP THE MEMORIES AND EXPERIENCES OF THE GREATEST GENERATION AND THE WORLD’S LARGEST CONFLICT ALIVE AND ACCESSIBLE FOR ALL GENERATIONS.” This is particularly funny because the greatest generation is so named because they fought the waffen SS, not because they were them. The 9th reenactment groups website also does not go into the history of the unit they are portraying, including their role in perpetuating the holocaust and upholding Nazi ideology. It is important to remember that the SS acted as the Nazi parties official paramilitary wing, and initially started as a security force for the Nazi party in Weimar Germany which along with the brownshirts frequently engaged in street brawling with antifascist dissidents and participated in the night of the long knives. After the Nazi party took power in Germany the SS was restructured so it comprised three different wings. The first wing, the Allegemeine SS and the various police agencies it comprised was responsible for the mass surveillance and policing of the populations of both Germany and occupied countries, which included upholding Nazi racial/eugenic laws (including the forced sterilizations of those who were deemed as unfit to reproduce) and engaging in state terrorism against suspected dissidents (this included the gestapo and police forces). The second wing was known as the totenkopfverbande, which was responsible for running extermination camps, and rounding up so called “undesirables” and “inferior peoples” after an area was occupied by the German army. These included Jews,ethnic Poles, Roma people, LGBTQ+ people, Afro-Germans/people of color, people with disabilities, jehovah’s witnesses, political dissidents, and other ethnic groups that were deemed as “non-aryan”. this was sometimes done with the collaboration of makeshift auxiliary police or mobs that were made up of civilians who were sympathetic with Nazi ideology. The totenkopfverbande were also the perpetrators of Aktion t4, a program where disabled adults and children in care homes and hospitals were murdered in gas chambers or experimented on. During the third reich’s planning of the ‘final solution’ zyklon b gas was tested on disabled hospital/asylum patients before it was used in the holocaust. The third wing was the waffen SS, which, alongside the wermacht acted as the military wing of the Nazi party and included the 9th SS panzer division among many others. All 3 branches of the SS coordinated with each other, and often jointly engaged in war crimes. The fact that this is not included or explained in any way in the 9th reenactment societies page is a huge red flag.
Perhaps the most problematic aspect of the group is their claim that both sides of the conflict are not represented in history and that not all soldiers who fought on the side of the Germans were “Nazis” or “bad.” In one paragraph in their Q and A section they even claim that German soldiers were defending their culture against “Bolshevism” (which is an overtly antisemitic dog whistle).
This claim is belied by the fact that the membership of the SS was specifically reserved for the most fanatical believers of Nazi ideology. Members were required to be heavily schooled in Nazi racial ideology and fulfill eugenic requirements(which included being a certain height and weight, although these standards weren’t always enforced). The organization as a whole also resembled a toxic masculine pseudo-religious cult with the characteristics of an elitist social club or fraternal order which only hardcore Hitler loyalists could join (members were taught that showing compassion for an enemy or openly conveying emotions like sadness was a sign of weakness and the SS fostered a culture of violence as the only option to defeat the “subhuman races”).
Given the 9th reenactment society’s problematic portrayal of waffen ss soldiers it is no surprise they would attract or help radicalize white supremacists like Dan Nash. If you are interested in WW2 history we would highly recommend avoiding this reenactment group at all costs
Employment:
As far as we know Dan Nash is currently employed as a manager at Stony Run Valley Vineyards. Their contact info can be found here
Clear photos:
